TCN Series: Saffroning Kerala: Part 3
By TCN Staff reporter,
Sultan Bathery [Wayanad]: The Sultan Bathery Grama Panchayath wanted to keep a check on the increasing number of stray dogs and their attacks on its people. They hence gave contracts to kill them and since years these dogs are being buried in fallow land adjacent to the Public graveyard.
The Public graveyard land starts immediately after the Manichira Muslim Jama’at owned Muslim graveyard, followed by the Christian one and then the graveyard owned by the Low-caste Hindus of the region. Unlike the Muslim graveyard the other two were not partitioned by compound walls.
The Panchayath president PP Ayoob – a local leader of the Indian Union Muslim League [IUML], had allowed the Karnataka based daily wage workers to bury the dogs in the fallow land adjacent to the Public grave yard. These daily wage workers without much clue regarding the anatomy of the grave yard buried a few dogs in the low-caste Hindu graveyard.
The Hindu-Aikya Vedi workers of the region, on taking note of the mishap, came up with weapons threatening Muslim shop keepers of the region and raised provocative slogans against the Muslim community. Soon the protest meant to be carried out against the Panchayath administration specifically targeted Muslims of the region and the District SP had to order security arrangements for mosques and Muslim centres of Sultan Bathery.
The next day Hindu Aikya Vedi declared a complete hartal in Wayanad District and their state leaders, famous for their rants against minority communities, visited the place to exploit the situation to its hilt.
Sultan Bathery has been the lone Panchayath in Wayanad district having an IUML nominee as president. Since he took charge, there have been attempts to tarnish his image. The Hindutva elements protested in front of his house, abusing his family members by derogatory slogans and by launching protests in front of the Panchayath office demanding his resignation.
They have been digging out the corpses of dogs and even made attempts to dump those in the adjacent Muslim grave yard.
The RSS Shakha and training sessions now carried out under the purview of Hindu Aikya Vedi has been successful in deceiving the low-caste Hindus and Dalits of the region.
Those Hindus who initially took the issue lightly too have been injected with anti-Muslim spirit by the Hindu-Aikya Vedi leaders and a much harmonious relationship between the Muslims and low-caste Hindus of the region has consequently deteriorated.